In its 20th year ReliefWeb notched up a record six million users, a rise of 4.5% from 2015. Most of these came from Africa, which saw a 17.5% jump from the previous year, confirming the continent as the top user base among the humanitarian community. The increase was particularly significant in South Sudan (+30%), Uganda (+18%), and Somalia (+17%).

There was also a striking increase in the number of users from the Middle East, notably Turkey (+35%), most likely bolstered by the humanitarian activities related to the Syria crisis. Figures are also on the rise for Jordan (+15%), which hosts significant numbers of refugees from Syria and has become the base of operation for some 60 humanitarian and development agencies.

ReliefWeb received, on average, about 1.3 million visits a month in 2016. Our users visit the site to search for the latest crisis information, job announcements and opportunities to brush up their skills and knowledge. They access the site from the field and headquarters, using various devices.

As an operator of a major humanitarian information platform, we have been improving our Google Analytics data gathering in order to improve our services based on user behaviors. The continuous improvements to our API in the past years have made it easier to analyze what’s in our content repository with information dating back to 1996, which we made available to users via Content Trends alpha in 2014.

From the ReliefWeb office in the middle of the UN’s Africa headquarters in Nairobi it makes perfect sense that Kenya should once again be the top user base for ReliefWeb, surrounded as we are by all the leading UN agencies and NGOs, as well as, unfortunately, some of the biggest crises - drought in Ethiopia, civil strife and food insecurity in South Sudan, violence, displacement in the Central African Republic - to name but a few.

In addition, connectivity has significantly improved in Africa in the past few years, as indicated by the large number of users who access ReliefWeb from their mobile phones, while tablet use has declined commensurately.

In 2015, ReliefWeb topped our own record again for the number of site visits and reports and maps published. 2015 saw 14.5 million sessions, a 20% increase from the previous year, by 5.7 million users, almost 16% increase in the same period.

ReliefWeb added 61,287 reports and maps (+11.66% from 2014), 10% of which were on the Syria crisis (more than 5,500 content). We highlighted almost 1,900 reports as headlines. In 19 years of operating, ReliefWeb had archived more than 653,000 pieces of humanitarian content as at the end of 2015.

Our disaster coverage also increased in 2015 to 88 disasters, a 14% increase from the previous year. One of the most devastating in the year, the Nepal earthquake, triggered a record daily usage, with 81,911 sessions on 2 May 2015, one week after the earthquake. Overall, usage from Nepal increased by 152% during the year.

More than ever humanitarian workers are seeking timely and reliable information to help them plan and deliver humanitarian responses to disasters and crises that are happening worldwide. As the humanitarian community’s leading source of information, ReliefWeb has been providing humanitarian information services since 1996. In the first half of 2015, ReliefWeb access has grown substantially, with a 19% increase in the sites usage from the same period in 2014.

Three major events have tested the international humanitarian community during this time, demonstrating the need for timely and reliable information systems. The Nepal earthquake, cyclone Pam and the crisis in Yemen, prompted humanitarians worldwide to visit ReliefWeb more than ever before. Here are some of the statistics of how humanitarians have used ReliefWeb during these events.